“That’s why they banned Rahul Gandhi’s Twitter account”: Congress leader Venugopal after Jack Dorsey alleges “govt pressure”

New Delhi [India], June 13 (ANI): Reacting to former CEO of Twitter Jack Dorsey’s claim that there was ‘pressure’ from India to block accounts covering the farmers’ protests, Congress leader KC Venugopal on Tuesday said that the government wants to shut the opposition’s voice and that is why they banned Rahul Gandhi’s Twitter account.

In an interview with the YouTube channel ‘Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar’ on Monday, Dorsey who stepped down from Twitter’s board last year, alleged that the Indian government had put pressure on Twitter and said that it will shut down the company in India and raid the houses of its employees.
“The statement of Twitter CEO is totally alarming and shocking for all of us. Entire government machinery is pressurising Twitter CEO to suppress and shut the opposition’s voice. That is why they banned Rahul Gandhi’s Twitter account,” Venugopal said.

“Where is the freedom of expression, freedom of media? They do this to suppress failure. We will raise the issue not only in Parliament, but we will also raise the issue throughout the country,” he said.

Meanwhile, Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee president Nana Patole also supported the claim of former CEO of Twitter Jack Dorsey that there was ‘pressure’ from India to block accounts covering the farmers’ protests and said that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) must have made such attempts.

“What Twitter CEO (Jack Dorsey) said is totally correct. When BJP came into power, media was not given the power to show the truth. Earlier also, the BBC launched a short film on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the central agency raided them. Yes, the government must have warned Twitter saying that if they report against us, we will raid departments of Twitter in India”.

Further Patole said, “We know that BJP uses central agencies, Twitter is not saying lies but this government is telling lies and they must have used the central agencies against them (Twitter, BBC)”.

Jack Dorsey in the interview said that there were requests during farmers’ protests to shut Twitter in the country.

“…..India is one of the countries which had many requests around farmers’ protests, around particular journalists who were critical of the government and it manifested in ways such as we will shut Twitter down in India, India is a big marketplace for us. We would raid the homes of your employees, which they did and we will shut down your offices if you don’t follow suit and this is India, a democratic country,” Dorsey is heard saying in the interview on the YouTube channel,” he said.

In November 2021, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the repeal of the three Central farm laws.

In his address to the nation, PM Modi said then, “Today I want to tell everyone that we have decided to repeal all three farm laws.” Farmers staged a protest in large numbers against the government’s three farm laws since the Centre passed the laws in 2020.

The Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, which is among the farm laws, provides for setting up a mechanism allowing the farmers to sell their farm produce outside the Agriculture Produce Market Committees (APMCs). Any licence-holder trader can buy the produce from the farmers at mutually agreed prices. This trade of farm produces will be free of mandi tax imposed by the state governments.

The Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement of Price Assurance and Farm Services Act allows farmers to do contract farming and market their produces freely.

The Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act is an amendment to the existing Essential Commodities Act.